Little Hands, Big Ideas

Shattered Glass

Short back-story on how this adventure started with my kids:  My son is an avid baseball player.  He takes every chance he can get to practice his swing and his aim.  A few months back he decided to "practice" his pitching form by throwing rocks in our back yard.  One of his "fast balls" hit the wrong target and broke the exterior pane of our sliding glass door.

Punishment: $600 worth of Indentured Servitude

Knowing that he was going to spend countless hours over the next few months cleaning cars, washing dishes, vacuuming carpets, and scrubbing toilets he approached me with an idea, "Dad, can I start a business making and selling rubber band guns?" A few months earlier we had made rubber band guns as Christmas gifts and he really enjoyed working with his hands.  What a great opportunity to teach him the value of hard work and entrepreneurship!

My daughter Naomi wanted to join us and we are now working together as a team.  Naomi traces the guns onto the wood, I cut out the guns, Joshua sands, we all assemble together.  The last step of painting has yet to be assigned, but I think that I will end up doing it because the idea of a can of spray paint in a nine or six year old's hands is a little scary.  The kids had a great idea of sourcing the lumber from reclaimed construction materials and culled lumber.

This has been a wonderful experience so far and I am excited to help these young entrepreneurs learn about what it takes to run a successful business.  The next part of the plan is to help them come up with a marketing and sales plan.  That will be a fun process.

I think I am going to create a KickStarter project for this and see how it goes.  This will be the kids college and mission money (after the sliding glass door is paid off of course).